


Home for Me is Where You Are

by TinCanTelephone



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguments, Bitterness, Break Up, F/M, Heavy Angst, I promise, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22029850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/pseuds/TinCanTelephone
Summary: Jyn and Cassian managed to survive the war, so why does peacetime feel so much harder?
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Shara Bey/Kes Dameron
Comments: 35
Kudos: 150





	1. Coruscant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OhMaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhMaven/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, @asteroiideae!!! As promised, this comes to you very late in the game and as you can see I did have to break it up, I should be posting the rest soon! I just need a little more time to perfect the ending. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, and that you get to break out the tissue box ;) 
> 
> I'd like to credit @oh-nostalgiaa with the title, who [submitted it for a meme](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/post/188931999520/fic-title-home-for-me-is-where-you-are-ok-i-knew) that inspired the meat of this story <33
> 
> Also thanks to @thegiddyowl for the last-minute beta and generally listening to me whine about writing at all hours of the night 
> 
> The prompt was: Post-RoTJ (plus angst)

It was late when Cassian came to bed, but Jyn was still awake. She usually was at this time of night, but she wasn’t sure if Cassian knew that. He probably did. He always seemed to know when she tried to hide things. 

Either way, he didn’t acknowledge it. He entered the room without turning on the light, and she heard him grunt as he sat on the bed to take off his trousers. Last year, or even a few months ago, she might’ve turned around then– offered to fetch the heating pad, or rub some of the knots from the muscles at the base of his spine. She might’ve told him to replace his desk chair with one that offered more support, or to go to the physical therapy sessions Kalonia recommended. But at some point she’d given up on that sort of thing. He never listened, and she was tired. 

Cassian settled down on the bed behind her, on his side facing the door. Once, he might’ve curled around her instead of facing away, a bony arm wrapped around her shoulder and nose pressed into her hair. He might’ve whispered that he was sorry, or that he loved her, and pressed his hand on top of hers. 

When she closed her eyes, she could almost remember what that felt like, that warm weight on the back of her arm. There was a time, she was sure, when his touch electrified her, awoke every nerve in her body, made her mind feel sharp and clear. 

On Endor, he’d charged through a mass of Ewoks and soldiers and medics to get to her, before sweeping her up in his arms when he saw her alive and breathing, if bruised and one ankle wrapped in bacta. Most of Jyn’s memories of that day were a blur of overwhelming relief– that they had both survived against all odds, and that her father’s creation was gone again, for good. 

She remembered they kissed that night, at the edge of the bonfire watching the Rebellion revel in pure joy for the first time in their memory. They’d kissed before that, but it had been different. Hesitant, unsure, fleeting. Never sure where the next cycle would take them, unable to commit in the uncertainty of war. 

But that night Cassian cupped her face in his hands and _really_ kissed her, eyes shining and cheeks about to burst from smiling, and told her he could never be apart from her again, that he’d stay with her forever if she’d have him. 

At the time, she allowed herself to hope they’d be done with death and fighting, but instead what followed was a year of tense anticipation and frantic preparation to defeat the last of the Imperial forces. On Jakku, Jyn found herself stationed on the ground, and despite being out of the field for years Cassian managed to talk his way into piloting the U-wing that brought her down. The ground battle that followed was a bloodbath, the Imperial forces fighting like sentients possessed, detonating grenades in their own hands if it would kill some of the rebels. 

When the _Ravager_ was destroyed, Cassian found her half-buried under the wreckage of a farmstand, pinned under the bodies of two dead soldiers and covered in their blood. Although by some miracle barely hurt, she couldn’t speak for hours after, and Cassian held her while she trembled against his chest. 

Jyn closed her eyes and wondered if she’d dream of that again. It would be a nightmare, but perhaps not so unwelcome. Nothing since had felt quite so real. 

She must’ve fallen asleep, because when she woke up Cassian was gone. Left for work, helping the Alliance rebuild the senate. It was noble work, like he told her all the time, repairing the damage the Empire had done and restoring justice to millions of sentients. He claimed to adore it, threw himself into it with a single-minded zeal that sometimes scared her. 

Jyn wondered sometimes if the last five years of the war had been harder on him that she thought. Scarif left him with a limp, chronic pain, and a weakened constitution that ensured he would never go into the field again as a soldier or a spy. He appeared to take it in stride, satisfied with working behind the scenes under Draven, but maybe it wore on him– forever relegated to the sidelines when others were giving their lives. But there wasn’t a war anymore, officially, and he could finally be useful to the cause in a central way again.

She sat up and scrubbed a hand over her face, squinting out the bedroom window onto their balcony, and the crowded skyline outside. Force, she hated Coruscant. It seemed to be in constant motion, the speeder lanes busy through the night, lights glowing all the time. Sometimes just walking outside was enough to give her sensory overload, thinking about all the cameras watching, all the corners where sentients could hide. She didn’t know how Cassian could stand it. Then again, he’d been off the battlefield much longer than she had. She hoped that was the difference, anyway. All she had to do was wait. 

Eventually, she threw back the covers and forced herself out of bed, crossing the bedroom to their walk-in closet. It was a luxury Leia was sure to point out when she gifted them the apartment, but in practice it was kind of sad. Neither of them had enough clothes to fill even half of the space, and however much they talked about expanding their respective wardrobes, neither of them actually did. 

So their closet remained empty except for two corners, one hung with an array of blues and grays, and one with blacks and browns. Even Cassian’s small collection of coats was kept in the hall closet. Not that he wore them anymore. Everywhere he went was temperature controlled. 

Something caught her foot as she walked inside and she cursed, grabbing onto the doorframe. She bent down to pick it up and realized it was a belt– one of Cassian’s that must’ve fallen when he dressed this morning. Plain brown bantha leather, and quite old. 

She fingered the notch he must’ve used the most, stretched around the edges and the shine worn away. Then her eye caught on some of the other notches further in. They looked newly worn, like he’d had to wear it tighter recently. She frowned, wondering how she could’ve missed him losing weight. He hardly had any to spare in the first place. 

She hung up the belt again, turning it over in her mind. Was he overworking himself that badly? Was he missing his meals? They ate together so rarely these days she wouldn’t know if he was. 

For some reason, the thought made her throat close up and angry tears prick her eyes. It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know! He got up too early and came to bed too late for her to wait for him. It was easier just to eat alone. 

She looked at the belt again and her fingers curled tight, nails pressing against her palm. What would Saw say about taking the easy way out? What would Chirrut say about allowing the one you love to slip away? 

No, she could fix this. It wasn’t beyond her yet. 

The sounds and smells of the market were awful– overwhelming with no way to escape. The closest one was crowded into the 4163rd floor of a tower two klicks away, and Jyn felt nauseous on the entire transport there. She actually gagged after stepping inside, on the smell of a thousand other sentients and preservatives sprayed all over the produce. All imported from across the galaxy, of course. Nothing could possibly grow on Coruscant. 

Breathing mostly through her mouth, she picked through the stalls, buying an onion here, a nuna breast there. She didn’t really have a plan, only a vague picture in her head of something Cassian once made for her. They’d been on Home I, a year or so after Scarif, and they were celebrating Cassian’s release from the medical frigate. 

They’d found a common room with a small kitchen attached, and she’d stolen a random collection of food from one of the canteen freezers. Still using a cane and wearing a brace on his leg, Cassian had shuffled around the kitchen with more energy than she’d seen since he woke up. Without even glancing at a recipe, he composed bowls of rice, pan-fried nuna meat, and a thin tomato sauce he called _mole._ It was so delicious she could still recall exactly how it smelled and tasted. 

She couldn’t hope to reproduce that now, or even come close, but perhaps she could approximate the feeling. Maybe bring some warmth back into their apartment that had felt so dull for so long. 

But when she returned home it was just as cold, even when she spread all her purchases across the counters and the island in their too-big kitchen. For several long minutes, she just stared hopelessly at the food, and everything felt so overwhelming she was tempted to throw it all in the incinerator and forget the whole endeavor. 

Would Cassian be home in time to eat whatever she managed to cook while it was still warm? Would he care? Would it even make a difference?

She picked up a head of lettuce and was halfway to the garbage chute when she thought of the belt again and stopped herself. 

What would Saw say? _Only cowards do nothing_. 

And dammit she wasn’t who she once was, but she wouldn’t be a coward. 

It was an awkward, haphazard process, and in the end she had to throw out the spinach, which she’d tried to cook in far too much oil, and the Loth Pine nuts, which had burned in the oven when she tried to roast them. But the result was two bowls of fresh green salad drizzled with oil and vinegar, topped with nuna only a little bit charred. 

In a fit of domesticity, she set two places at their table with mats, utensils, and wine glasses, then lit two candles in the middle like she’d seen in holomovies. Then she scoured every surface of the kitchen, washed and dried all the cooking dishes, and took one of the seats at the table. It was almost 2030. Cassian would be home any minute, and she would be ready. 

Then she watched the chrono tick to 2100, then 2130. Then 2149. Then 2200. Long past the time she would’ve normally eaten and gone to bed. By the time Cassian returned at 2213, she was on the verge of tears, hungry, and desperately tired. 

He hung up his jacket and shoulder bag neatly by the door, then paused when he saw her. His eyes moved slowly over the table, taking in the place settings, the food, and the candles that were now dripping wax all over their holders. 

“…You cooked?” he said.

“Yes.” Was that really all he could say? 

“Why?”

She blinked, trying to fight through the anxiety rising in her chest. She was so stupid. This was all so stupid. “Because I– you– because I wanted to.” 

He shook his head. “It’s late. You should’ve eaten without me.”

“But I didn’t want to.” _Force_ , she sounded needy. But she couldn’t help it. She was too tired to put on a braver face, too tired to tell anything but the truth. 

He seemed to relent a little and took his place at the table.

Part of her was relieved, but mostly she just felt bitter, because he was only humoring her out of pity.

“If I’d known you were doing this I would’ve tried to come home sooner,” he said, picking up his fork and giving his salad a halfhearted toss. 

The bitterness won out. “No you wouldn’t have.” 

“Jyn–”

“Can we just eat, please?” There was a fight there, almost close enough to touch, but she just wasn’t ready quite yet. Maybe they could push it to tomorrow, or a few days from now.

“Okay, fine.” Cassian sat back and started eating, if not terribly enthusiastically. 

Jyn let out a quiet breath of relief and picked up her own fork. 

But after two bites in she despaired, and admitted to herself that food probably wouldn’t solve anything. The chicken was overdone and cold after hours of sitting on the table. The salad was dry and limp, makeshift dressing separated at the bottom. Maybe it was the tension settling around them, but none of it was very appealing anymore. 

“Do you like it?” It was a stupid question, and she hated herself for asking it. There was nothing he could say that would make anything better. A _No_ would hurt her badly, prove that all this work was for nothing. But a _Yes_ would almost be worse, because it wouldn’t be true.

“Yes,” he said. 

A lie, true to form. She shook her head, eyes trained down at her lap. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.” 

He put down his fork. “Well, what do you want me to say?”

 _I want you to say it’s the worst thing you’ve had since freeze-dried dewback stew_. _I want you to say you hate this job and this planet and this horrible apartment. I want you to say you hate me, and hate this relationship. I want you to say you’re as unhappy as I am_. 

Jyn gasped, every thought slamming into her mind all at once. That’s it, that was the root of it all. She was unhappy– so deeply, profoundly unhappy with this life in a way nothing could fix, not even Cassian. 

“I hate it here,” she found herself saying. “I want to leave.”

Cassian’s lips pressed together, and he took a deep breath. “You know we can’t do that yet.”

“That’s a load of bantha-shit,” she said. “The war’s over. We’re supposed to be _free_.” 

“We are free.” He wiped his hands and pushed back from the table. “But I can’t just abandon the Alliance. The war’s over, but that’s nothing if we don’t construct a solid foundation for the new government.” 

Jyn scoffed. She’d heard it all before. “Does that _solid foundation_ depend on you working twelve karking hours a day?”

“There may have been a few late nights–”

“I’d say more than a _few._ ”

He placed his hands on the table. “Jyn, you know I’ve been trying.” 

“Have you?” she sneered. “I wouldn’t know, we hardly see each other anymore.”

“If that’s what this is about, you should come back to work,” he said. “I talked to Draven about a few new positions you can try–”

“No!” her fingers curled around the fork so hard her knuckles turned white. “I hate it there, and I never want to go back.”

He sighed. “Look, I know this adjustment is difficult–”

“You don’t know sith spit!” Her voice was rising. “Don’t try to lecture me on my _adjustment_. You haven’t been a real soldier in years.” 

He flinched, and she felt a horrid, perverse thrill to know her blow had landed. It was cruel, but she didn’t care. Something had to get through his cold, hard spy armor, and maybe then he’d understand how much she hurt, too. 

But then the flash of emotion disappeared and he calmly stood up, scraping his food into the incinerator and placing the bowl in the sink. “You didn’t mean that.”

“I did.” But she sounded petulant and childish. 

“Fine,” he said coldly, returning from the kitchen to do the same with her bowl. “Then you’ll know I went through the same thing, and I’m just trying to help.” 

“What help?” she hissed. “Like you’re the poster child for good adjustment, working your life force away at a meaningless job just so you don’t have to feel anything.” 

His indifferent mask finally broke, and he glared at her from across the kitchen. “Don’t you dare,” he said softly. “Accuse me of not feeling anything.” 

“Or what?” she said. “You’ll give me the silent treatment? It’d be days before I noticed a difference.”

He shook his head and pushed off the sink, brushing past her to pace in the living room. She watched him complete two laps in his odd, uneven gait, then stop, breathing hard, visibly trying to control himself. It was strangely satisfying, to see him this worked up. It almost felt more… honest. 

When he spoke, his voice was calm. “Just because we aren’t fulfilled by the same things doesn’t mean you have to be dismissive of mine.”

Jyn couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Stars, they’ve really brainwashed you, haven’t they?” She stood up and faced him across the dining room. “Is that what fulfillment is to you, signing meaningless forms all day, doing Draven’s paperwork? Setting up red tape and bureaucracy that exists to make sentients’ lives hard? Becoming a cog in some new government machine while they wait until you collapse at your desk?”

“Enough!”

She stepped back, afraid and impressed she had managed to crack him. 

“This is what we fought for,” he said. “We fought, we killed, we tore down a government and threw the entire galaxy into even more chaos. We don’t get to just _walk away_ after that, no matter how jaded and weary we may be. To do so is selfish and irresponsible.” 

His words felt like a slap in the face and for a second, Jyn reeled. “So if I want to leave, that means I’m selfish?”

He stiffened, but didn’t back down. “It means you can’t be bothered to help clean up after the mess you helped create.” 

“Fine.” She pushed away from the table. “Maybe I am selfish, but at least I don’t lie to myself about being happy when I’m not.”

They stared each other down across the living room, breathing hard, as she waited for Cassian to speak. 

“I never said I was happy,” he said quietly. 

Her legs felt weak and her eyes were burning. “Then what are you even doing here?”

“It’s not about my happiness,” he said. 

“It never is,” she said bitterly, turning towards the bedroom. “That would be _selfish_.” She left before he could reply, going into the bedroom and shutting the door. She wondered if he’d follow her, or if he’d attempt to sleep on the couch. It would destroy his back if he did, and she almost considered making sure he didn’t. Then she collapsed onto the bed and decided it wasn’t her responsibility. It wasn’t her job to keep saving him from himself. 

Cassian eventually came to bed that night, and she woke when he got up the next morning. She watched him silently as he dressed for work. And while he didn’t seem to shy away from her gaze, neither of them spoke. It didn’t feel like the silent treatment though. There was just… nothing left to say. 

For a little while, things seemed to return to normal. Jyn never attempted to cook again, and they fell back into their routine of living almost separate lives. But she didn’t feel quite the same. There was a different sort of feeling creeping over her in place of the frustrated, hopeless detachment from before. 

It was a sort of resignation, she realized. It used to be that they wouldn’t talk to each other, and fight because they didn’t know what the other was thinking. But now they’d talked, and if this is what came of it… well there wasn’t anything for it then. 

It was mid-morning and she was still in bed, staring at the ceiling. Perhaps she should’ve known this was going to happen, so she shouldn’t be surprised. The Alliance was the only thing Cassian was truly devoted to, and she was foolish to think there was room in his life for her too. It wasn’t personal, it was just the way things were. 

Her mind made up, she threw back the covers and went into their closet, pulling down bags they’d stored on the top shelves after moving in. They were dusty, and she had to smack them a few times to clean them. It was a strangely unfamiliar thing– she wasn’t sure she’d ever been in a place long enough for her bags to get dusty. 

She tossed the first shirt in with more force than necessary, and stared at it sadly for a few seconds. It felt final, somehow. Like this was officially the End. 

_And it is,_ she thought stubbornly, pulling out the rest of her clothes and tossing them in with the shirt. _I’ve wasted enough time here, unhappy, only staying for something as insignificant as a man._ What would Saw say? What had he warned her about attachments? 

But her heart still broke a little as the bags filled up. Because she still loved him– she could admit that, even now. The only person who had ever come back for her, the only person who stayed, at least for a little while. And she thought he still loved her too, the way he looked at her sometimes before turning away quickly when she caught him. Distant and melancholy, but with a shadow of the expression she’d seen in the hangar in Massassi, welcoming her home. 

_But things change,_ she thought bitterly, gathering her tech from the bedside table and drawers. _And sometimes you just have to accept it._ No matter how Cassian felt, he’d made his choice. 

Barely an hour after she started, she looked around their apartment from the front door. Neither of them had many personal effects, and without her things scattered around, it looked even more austere than before– almost un-lived in. She wondered if Cassian would notice immediately that she had left, or if the difference was so slight he wouldn’t know until she never came to bed. 

She briefly considered leaving a note, to save him the trouble, but then shook her head and turned out the lights, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind her. What would such a note even say that hadn’t already been said? It felt cruel to shove it in his face again, give him a physical reminder of all the reasons why it was better this way. 

She walked to the closest off-planet transport station in a daze, and stared up at the holoscreen timetables, wondering where to go. Somewhere quiet and not built up, although she wasn’t prepared to camp, or for any extreme weather. 

Then her eyes fell on a transport leaving in less than an hour. It would take five days with a layover and a ticket on short notice would be expensive, but she found herself walking to the booth with the shortest line and holding out her credit chip. 

“I’d like a one-way ticket to Yavin IV.” 

* * *

Yavin was warmer than she remembered, although maybe she was just too used to the over-conditioned, over-filtered air of Coruscant. The best part though, was the quiet. Once a few klicks away from the airstrip, there was no sound but the wind in the trees and the sounds of animals moving about the underbrush. 

Jyn took a second to appreciate it before knocking on the door. 

It swung open almost immediately, a stunned Kes Dameron standing just inside. 

For a second, no one spoke and Jyn wondered if she’d overstepped, showing up suddenly, unannounced, on the doorstep of friends she hadn’t seen in years. 

Then a curly black head peeked around Kes’s leg and he seemed to snap out of his trance. “Hey, Buddy,” he said, lifting Poe onto his hip. “It’s your Auntie Jyn. Do you remember your Auntie Jyn?” 

“He’s gotten so big,” Jyn murmured. 

Kes nodded and gave him a bounce. “Want to tell Auntie Jyn how old you are now?” 

Poe looked at her sidelong, face half-buried in his father’s shoulder, but held out a hand and said, “A’most five.” 

“Wow,” she said. “Is it your life day soon?”

But apparently this was too much and Poe turned his head firmly away from her. 

“Sorry.” Kes brushed the back of his curls and stepped aside, motioning with his head. “Come on in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, the angst is not over :P


	2. Yavin IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay it's finally here! Wow the holidays really take a lot out of you, don't they? 
> 
> Prepare for more angst (be sure to check the tags!), but also for that happy ending I promised ;)

The Damerons didn’t have a spare bedroom, but Kes unfolded their sofa and told her to make herself at home. Jyn was hesitant at first, but soon found herself relaxed in a way that she hadn’t been in a very long time. The Damerons’ life was quiet, spent mostly around the house and yard. Kes occasionally took a speeder to the nearest spaceport, but that seemed at first to be the only time he and Shara spent apart. 

“Poe will start school next year,” Shara said as they sat on the porch watching Kes chase their son around the front yard. “It’ll be strange, not having him around all the time.” 

There was a sad, fond smile on her face, and for a second Jyn barely recognized the wild, airy pilot from the Rebellion. She wanted to dismiss it, the idea of being tied down by such a connection, but instead found herself wishing for it with an intensity she didn’t know existed. To Shara it wasn’t a confinement– it was someone to come home to, someone to love who loved you back, who understood you in a way that no one else would. Who would miss you when you weren’t there. She licked her lips and swallowed, watching intently as Poe shrieked and giggled and crawled under the A-wing parked behind the speeder. 

“Do you still fly sometimes?” she said, nodding in his direction, hoping to change the subject and push away stronger emotions. 

“A bit.” Shara nodded. “For the civilian defense. I’ve tried to cut back, but I don’t believe I could stop if I wanted to. I get… restless when I’m on the ground for too long. The sky becomes too tempting.”

“Do you think you’ll teach Poe?” 

“Maybe.” She glanced down at her lap, fingers drumming on her knees. “Truthfully, I want to. To share that majesty, that freedom with him would be beyond anything else. But… I also don’t want him to be like me, you know?” She looked up, back to her husband, who had dragged Poe out from under the ship and was now carrying him around on his shoulders. “I don’t want him to _need_ to be up there, so badly he can’t bear to stay on the ground.” 

Jyn watched the boys playing on the grass for a little while longer, turning Shara’s words over in her mind. Would Cassian call it selfish of Shara to share with her son the passion that made a peaceful life so difficult? She wondered if Shara thought about it the same way, and how long she’d try to resist the urge. 

But before she could say anything, Shara gave a little sigh and stood up, hand lingering on the chain of the porch swing. “I’m going inside for a bit,” she said. “But you’re welcome to stay out here. There should be a few more hours of sun left.” 

Jyn didn’t see her for the rest of the week, although Kes and Poe didn’t acknowledge it. As the days wore on, she began to notice a subtle heaviness that hung in the hair around the house, that seemed in bleak contrast to the sun and warmth that surrounded them. 

There were tense moments between Kes and Shara– anxious glances they shared over their son’s head when they thought she wasn’t looking, and low, sharp words exchanged in their bedroom or when they were alone in the kitchen. 

Sometimes the smallest, strangest things would set Poe off, and he’d go from a happy, bubbly toddler to an unmanageable terror in the blink of an eye. One night, Shara stepped on a toy on the way to the bedroom and cursed, hopping a few steps before continuing on her way. Kes jumped and moved to help her, but before he could Poe was suddenly on the floor screaming, crying and howling and kicking anyone who got close. Both his parents rushed to his side and tried for hours to console him, but the poor thing wailed long into the night. 

It was so long that Jyn, who considered herself used to blocking things out, eventually developed a headache and had to search through the Damerons’ medicine cabinet for painkillers. While she was looking, her eyes fell upon a collection of vials filled with a milky-white solution and a cup holding several syringes. Heart pounding, she picked up the closest vial and held it up to read the label. _Dameron, S., Hadeira Serum, one dose_. 

Her hands shook and she remembered one of Saw’s cadre, a former pilot who injected himself with the same serum every day to prevent the progression of a deadly disease he’d developed after spending so much time in space. It made him shaky, and caused unpredictable fainting spells, but without it he suffered periodic fevers that grew worse and more frequent until he died. There was a technical term for it, but Jyn remembered him calling it _bloodburn_ , because it burned him to death from the inside. 

She hastily put it back and shut the cabinet, painkillers forgotten. She returned to her pulled-out sofa in a hurry, wrapping herself tight in the blankets and squeezing her eyes shut. Poe’s screaming died down and her headache faded, but she found it difficult to get to sleep. 

The next day, she joined the Damerons on a walk a little ways from their house. Kes carried a watering can, and as soon as they neared the treeline he handed it off to Poe, who half-carried, half-dragged it to a small sapling, barely bigger than himself, and began to carefully water its roots. 

Jyn watched him from next to Shara, trying to think of where she’d seen such a tree before. 

“It’s an Uneti tree,” she said. “Grown from a twig saved when the Great Tree of the Jedi Temple was destroyed. They say it’s Force-sensitive, but I suppose I wouldn’t know.” She shrugged. “Either way it’ll be beautiful when it grows to its full size.”

“Do you think you’ll get to see that?” Jyn couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Will you be alive that long?”

Shara stilled, and glanced sidelong at her husband and son, still preoccupied inspecting the tree’s branches for pests. “I don’t know.” 

“How bad is it?” Jyn said, struggling to keep her voice even. “The bloodburn? I saw the hadeira in your ‘fresher.” 

“Not too bad,” Shara said softly. “But it’s– it’s difficult to stop flying. The hadeira helps me get by, but I can’t use it too much.”

“Does he know?” Jyn said, motioning to Poe. “Does Kes–”

“Kes knows,” Shara said, before Jyn could take back such a stupid question. “Poe doesn’t really understand, although I think he knows something’s wrong.” She crossed her arms and stared at the ground. “Kes wants me to stop flying altogether, offers to sell the A-wing sometimes. But he doesn’t understand either– how _trapped_ I’d feel, stuck on the ground for the rest of my life. That wouldn’t even feel like living to me, to be bound by gravity forever.” 

For some reason, Jyn found this frustrating. “But as your partner, shouldn’t he be able to understand, to listen and see your point of view?”

Shara gave her a meaningful look. “Not even your partner can understand everything, Jyn,” she said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this, it’s that your experiences are yours and yours alone. The best you can hope for is to let someone close enough that they can _almost_ see what you see, feel what you feel, but in the end you’ll never truly be One.” 

Jyn let out a breath, suddenly back in that apartment on Coruscant, looking at the pain in Cassian’s face as she yelled bitterly about his work. “Even if it could give your more time with them,” she said slowly, gazing at Kes and Poe and the Uneti tree, “you could never give up flying, could you?”

“It would be like giving up a part of myself,” Shara said without hesitation. “It would be no different than dying of the disease.” 

Jyn nodded and pressed her hands into the pockets of her vest. Perhaps this is what she should’ve understood about Cassian, and what she should’ve communicated to him. That he couldn’t live without the Alliance, as much as she couldn’t live with it. And here she was because neither of them could let the other close enough to comprehend the pain. 

As generous as Shara and Kes were with their living room, and as much as they insisted she could stay as long as she needed, Jyn was acutely aware she couldn’t stay here forever. They’d need their space eventually, but more than that she needed to have a place of her own.

There was an old friend on Takodana who had a place for her, but it would take two weeks and three shuttle transfers to get there. Most routes went through the Core, and her eyes lingered on the ones that laid over in Coruscant. It was tempting, to just stop and see if he was still there. See if he was doing okay. But she shook her head and settled on one with a layover in Balmorra. If she saw him, she wouldn’t quite trust herself to leave him again. 

Two days before her shuttle was due to leave, she began packing up her bags, gathering her few belongings now scattered around the living room. 

“I think Poe has fun hiding my shirts,” she muttered as Kes helped her look behind the bookshelf. 

“Don’t worry too much if you forget something,” he said. “We know where you are, we can send you anything you want.” 

“I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” she said, reaching into a corner for a grey undershirt. 

“It’s not a problem.” He pushed the bookcase back in place. “Poe loves visiting the mail offices in town– shit, that’s the door.” Kes brushed the dust off his hands and went to answer it. “I bet that’s Shara back from her patrol–” 

Then he stopped short, and the galaxy seemed to stand still as they both stared at Cassian, standing there on the front porch. 

Kes recovered first. “I guess I should’ve been expecting you, Andor.” He stepped aside and clapped Cassian on the shoulder as he stepped inside. “I don’t suppose you’re here to see me, although you’re welcome to stay. Maybe eat a few good meals.” 

Jyn winced. Kes was too compulsively positive to mention it, but Cassian looked worse than she remembered– cheeks hollow and eyes dark, trousers noticeably loose. She nodded stiffly to him, and he stood awkwardly in the center of the room, taking in the pulled-out sofa, and all her bags repacked again. 

Kes rocked back on his heels. “I’ll… go see what Poe’s got into. I bet he wants to go on a walk.” He almost ran out out of the living room, leaving them alone. 

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Jyn thought Cassian seemed to be waiting for her, although it would hurt her pride to go first. She was the one who’d left, after all, no matter how much it broke her heart, or how badly she missed him. 

In the end she couldn’t help it. “How did you find me?”

“I asked around.” Cassian gave a humorless laugh. “Kes is a poor liar.” 

Legs shaking, she dropped to sit on the edge of the couch, and after a beat of hesitation, Cassian stepped forward and sat next to her, more than an arm’s length away. 

“How long did you have to look?” she asked.

“Not long,” he said, staring at the floor. “I didn’t… begin right away.”

 _Why not?_ she wanted to say, but stopped herself just in time. She had been the one to leave, and she didn’t ask him to follow.

“I thought I’d to be able to let you go,” he said. “I thought you’d be happier.” His voice was low, but she could hear the wobble in it. “But I couldn’t. I can’t.” 

“What do you mean?” She was almost afraid to ask, but if he had really come all this way for her, she needed to know everything. 

He turned to her and for once she held his gaze, heart stuttering at the anguish in his eyes. 

“Jyn, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m not even sure how much that means anymore, and I don’t know how you’ll ever forgive me, but I understand now, how I was taking you for granted all that time, and never bothered to understand why you were unhappy.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she said before he could go on. “For leaving like I did, and for everything I said that night. You didn’t– you don’t deserve that.” 

“Don’t I?”

“You _don’t_ ,” she said. “You deserve to be happy too, whatever that looks like to you, and if your work made you happy, I’m sorry I made it difficult for you. 

“Like I said, I wasn’t really happy back there,” he said. “After the war, I just… wanted to feel like I mattered again. Like I could do something useful.”

Jyn nodded, eyes burning with shame. She’d known that, she could see it in everything he did. And she’d thrown it back in his face. 

“But whatever I do– all that work– is meaningless without you,” he continued. “Or when you’re not happy. That’s what I meant, when I said I thought I could let you go. I can’t. You’re the one who makes it all feel… worth it.” 

They’d been shifting slowly closer on the sofa, and she wanted to reach out– see if it would feel like it did before all this ugliness. “I don’t think I could let you go, either.”

He turned to her suddenly and in a moment of uncharacteristic spontaneity reached out and pulled her close. He still felt so thin, and she could feel his shoulder blades and the bottom of his ribs through his shirt, but to hear his heart beating beneath hers was beyond anything she’d felt in such a long time, and his arms around her shoulders felt strong and comforting, like _home_. 

Sitting next to each other on the pulled-out couch, they had to twist awkwardly to fully embrace, which she knew would be hard on his back so she pulled him backwards so they were lying down, still wrapped in each other’s arms. 

“I’d leave the Alliance forever for you,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I quit that position on Coruscant to follow you here, and I’ll never go back if you don’t want to.” 

Her heart broke and she buried her face in his shoulder, tears wetting his shirt. “I couldn’t ask for that,” she said. “I can’t ask you to give up everything.”

“I won’t take you back to Coruscant,” he said, with a conviction that made her hold him tighter. “I already sold that horrible apartment.” 

“We can still go somewhere you can work. But maybe someplace where it can’t… consume you. Perhaps you can ask Leia,” she said, looking up at him, “if she can find you a place like that.” 

“I will.” Cassian nodded earnestly, then ducked his head hesitantly down to kiss her. 

She kissed him back hard, and they pressed their mouths together with more energy than either of them really had, intent on making up for all the time they’d lost in the past year. 

They spent the entire night wrapped in each other’s arms. Jyn slept better than she had in months, and woke up slowly to morning light peeking through the blinds. Cassian shifted in a way that meant he was awake too, and grunted in pain as he turned over. 

“I promise I’ll help you get better,” she whispered, not quite fully awake, all her emotions still rolling about in her head unchecked. “I don’t want you to be in pain anymore, and I promise you’ll have whatever help you need, and I promise to be there through everything.”

His movements clumsy from sleep, his fingers curled softly around a lock of her hair, following it down her neck and shoulders, drifting around until his hand held the back of her head. “I promise to be there for you, too. I don’t want you to have nightmares anymore, or feel so numb you can’t… be you.” 

“I love you,” she whispered. 

“I love you.” 

Sticky mouth and stale breath be damned, she leaned forward to kiss him again. 

They began to get up slowly, hands never straying far apart, until Cassian’s datapad chimed with a message from Leia and they had to hurry. In typical Leia fashion, she’d not only found a new position for Cassian, but had booked them on the next transport to Naboo. 

Sensing a change, Poe charged out of his bedroom to hug Jyn goodbye, Shara and Kes close behind him. They showed them out the door and wished them all the best, although Jyn lingered on the porch. 

“Thank you so much,” she said. “For everything.” 

“Anytime,” Kes said, nodding in that easy way of his. 

“I… I know what’s going on,” she said, glancing nervously at Shara. “And you can always let me know if there’s anything you need.” 

“Thank you,” said Kes, his face clouding over. 

Jyn thought he was about to say something else, but the speeder arrived to take them to the transport station and Cassian began loading their things into the back. 

“You’d better get going,” Shara said, drawing her in for one more hug. “We’ll be okay.” 

So with one last goodbye, Jyn turned away and joined Cassian in the speeder, ready to start their new life. 

* * *

Jyn would never know how Leia did it, but the house she found for them was perfect. Close to the capital city of Theed, where Cassian would be working for the Naboo representative in the New Republic, but right next to a dense forest criss-crossed with hiking trails and lined with orchards. 

While technically larger than their apartment with two floors, a backyard, and a porch, the rooms felt smaller, cozier, more like home. Jyn loved it as soon as she stepped inside, and spent the whole first night staring out the open window, marvelling that she could actually see the stars and wondering if happiness could really be this simple. 

It wasn’t, of course. 

In the first week, Cassian came down with a flu so bad she took him to a medic, who just shook her head at the state of him. 

“Underweight, obviously,” she said, writing up prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers. “Old injuries clearly exacerbated by overwork, evidence of chronic inflammation…”

Jyn glared and began hauling Cassian off the exam table. What good were medics if they just said what you already knew? 

The fever dragged on for almost a week, and the cough lingered for many more after that. It seemed like given his first chance to crash in years, Cassian went down hard, and although he tried to hide it, she knew the time off for his recovery brought back some of the bitterness of being useless. 

For her part, it was nightmares that seemed to follow her here. The quiet gave her time to dwell on flashbacks of Jakku, Endor, Scarif, even Wobani. It was difficult to sleep, and harder to rise from their bed in the morning. She could feel the temptation– it would be so easy to slip back into that horrible numbness. 

But Cassian was paying closer attention this time, whether it was because he was stuck at home or because he’d truly learned his lesson, and he was quick to reach out and pull her back. He held her through every nightmare, even when she couldn’t tell him what it was, and coaxed her into the shower even when he was barely able to stand himself. 

When he was well enough they made a pact. He would go to physical therapy if she saw a psychotherapist, and damn if that didn’t motivate her. Even though she hated it, hated digging up and analyzing old feelings, hated crying to a stranger for an hour and a half every week, it was worth it to see Cassian walking better every day, putting on weight and muscle. 

He never quite shook the limp, and her therapist eventually prescribed long-term medication to help keep the numbness at bay, but as the months stretched into years, things really did begin to change. Jyn started to feel snatches of the idyllic life she imagined. There probably wouldn’t be a peak, she realized, when everything would be _perfect_. But she thought they could find an equilibrium– just the two of them, finally balancing each other out.

Their neighbors owned an orchard– the trees growing in neat rows produced an oblong, orange fruit that contained a juicy, sweet pulp and four pits she spat out one by one as she ate it. After stumbling onto the property by accident, Jyn found herself part-time employment testing the soil quality and looking for signs of pests. It allowed her to be outside most of the time, the freedom to make her own schedule, and to bring extra fruit back to Cassian, who would make it into the most delicious salsa. 

And thank all the gods he was cooking again. With more free time and less pain, their kitchen smelled different every day as old recipes came back to him and he experimented with the local cuisine. Cassian always looked so _happy_ in the kitchen. The more he cooked, the more he ate, and he gained weight in the form of wiry muscle that looked unfairly good on him. Jyn could watch him for hours while he worked, and declared everything he cooked the best thing she’d ever eaten. 

Until he made Paonga seafood salad, which she vomited into the sink directly after eating. Cassian was horrified, and set about trying to take her temperature and incinerating the remains of the salad and all its ingredients. 

“You should see a medic,” he said as he shook their medscanner to make it work faster. 

“Cass,” she sighed and tried to pull it away. 

He held on tighter and squinted at the readout. “If you have an allergy or a virus or some other sensitivity we need to know, perhaps I should comm–”

“Cassian.” With more force this time, she pulled the medscanner away and handed him her datapad, open to the results of a bloodtest she’d gotten at the local medcenter, and planned to save for after dinner.

Through his panic, it took him a long few minutes to understand, but when he did the dinner was entirely forgotten. 

His joy and excitement was contagious, and for the moment outweighed her terror that it would never again be _just the two of them_. 

The baby made Jyn think of Poe, and then of Kes and Shara. From Naboo, the Yavin system was only visible through a telescope as the barest pinprick of light. But as her pregnancy progressed, Jyn took to staring at it, heart heavy as she thought about the sword hanging over their heads. 

Of course, the news arrived just two days after Kayda Jeron Erso Andor was born. Jyn was sitting up in bed, cradling the infant to her chest even though it was late, staring out the medcenter window feeling strangely sad. She knew before Cassian said it when the message came in. 

“She’s gone,” she whispered.

He nodded, face worn and tired as he tapped out condolences to Kes, then let her sink back into him. She felt his tears falling onto the back of her head, as hers dripped onto Kayda. 

They missed the funeral, Jyn too weak to travel and Kayda too young, but managed a visit almost one year later. Again, Jyn marveled at how much Poe had grown, while he marveled at how small Kayda was. Kes took them to visit the Uneti tree, under which he’d carved a small plaque with Shara’s name and birthdate. It had also grown since Jyn had seen it last, now almost as tall as her. 

“Say what you want about the Force,” said Kes, gently touching one of the branches. “I really do feel like she’s with me when I’m here.” 

“I believe you.” Jyn’s arms were getting tired, so she sat down a few meters away from the tree, Kayda balanced on chubby legs between her knees. 

“She walking yet?” Kes said, as Jyn experimented with taking her hands away, then catching Kayda as she fell in one direction or another. 

“Not quite,” she said. It had been hard to practice recently– Cassian’s back acting up meant he couldn’t easily crouch or sit on the floor to act as motivation, and Kayda had been less than enthusiastic about attempting to walk towards a chair. 

“Try now,” Cassian said. 

“Sorry?” Jyn glanced up at him. 

“Maybe she’ll walk towards the tree.” He looked intently at Kayda. “Will you walk towards the tree, _mija_? Will you walk towards the tree for Mamá?”

Kayda smiled and bounced on her knees, drooling onto her chin. 

“Go on,” Jyn leaned forward and spoke into Kayda’s ear. “You can do it, baby.” She balanced her with her hands again, then gave her a little nudge forward. “Walk for Auntie Shara.” 

Then she let go, and in a series of controlled falls, Kayda stumbled forward three steps before catching herself on the tree. 

The melancholy evaporated, and Kes, Cassian and Poe burst out in cheers and applause, while Jyn crawled forward to collect Kayda before she fell into the dirt. She scooped her up and stood, holding her up first to her Papá for congratulations. 

But Cassian gathered Jyn into his arms as well, kissing each of them in turn. “I love you,” he murmured, over and over again. “I love you.” 

Jyn kissed him back, even though she was crying again– happy tears this time, she was pretty sure, because they had worked _so hard_ for this, and come so far from the last time they were here. 

“I love you,” she whispered back to him, just like they had that night on the sofa all those years ago. “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> The end!!! I hope you thoroughly enjoyed your gift, OhMaven– I had a lot of fun writing it (even if it almost made me cry) 
> 
> Ending Credits  
> “Darkness Keeps Chasing Me” - Grace VanderWaal  
> “Rise Up” - Andra Day
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and all your support in the form of comments and kudos!! I couldn't do it without you guys. (Well, maybe I would but those definitely make it better) 
> 
> Of course I'm still on tumblr as [cats-and-metersticks](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/) :D


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